At closing of Year for Priests, Vatican official comments on challenges clergy face

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2010 / 12:05 pm (CNA).- The undersecretary for the Congregation for the Clergy, Archbishop Celso Morga, told Vatican Radio this week that a fundamental challenge priests face and what is expected of them as a result of the Year for Priests is that they bring Christ to world, “with all of his love, with all of his demands.”

The archbishop made his comments at the conclusion of the Priestly Congress organized by the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome in preparation for the “International Meeting of Priests” that will close the Year for Priests.

Archbishop Morga explained that “the priest carries out ministry, a proclamation that is Christ. And Christ has his demands, he has his commandments. This is the great challenge for today’s priest. To bring Christ with all of his love, with all of his demands.”

Priests must always remain “in union with Christ,” the archbishop said. “They must be pious men. And consequently they must be docile. The priest is a servant. His life is not in his own hands but rather in the hands of another who is Christ, and in the hands of the Church, his spouse,” he noted.

Archbishop Morga predicted that the International Meeting of Priests that will take place June 9-11 in Rome would be “the largest gathering of priests in history,” as some 14,000 are expected to attend, three times the number that attended the Jubilee of Priests in 2000.

“There are 10,000 priests registered with the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi. Another 3,000 have registered with the Prefecture of the Secretary of State. Therefore we expect 13-14,000 priests. In 2000, we brought together 5,000 priests in Rome. This time we are going to double or triple that number,” he added.